Related papers: Branched covers bounding rational homology balls

We introduce a new technique for showing classical knots and links are not slice. As one application we resolve a long-standing question as to whether certain natural families of knots contain topologically slice knots. We also present a…

We prove that a simple knot in the lens space $L(p,q)$ fibers if and only if its order in homology does not divide any remainder occurring in the Euclidean algorithm applied to the pair $(p,q)$. One corollary is that if $p=m^2$ is a perfect…

Finite-order invariants of knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds (including non-orientable ones) are constructed and studied by methods of the topology of discriminant sets. Obstructions to the integrability of admissible weight systems to…

We investigate the properties of knots in S^3 which bound Klein bottles, such that a pushoff of the knot has zero linking number with the knot, i.e. has zero framing. This is motivated by the many results in the literature regarding slice…

We formulate and prove a profinite rigidity theorem for the twisted Alexander polynomials up to several types of finite ambiguity. We also establish torsion growth formulas of the twisted homology groups in a $\mathbb{Z}$-cover of a…

The theory of the Kauffman bracket, which describes the Jones polynomial as a sum over closed circles formed by the planar resolution of vertices in a knot diagram, can be straightforwardly lifted from sl(2) to sl(N) at arbitrary N -- but…

A classical result in knot theory says that the Alexander polynomial of a fibered knot is monic and that its degree equals twice the genus of the knot. This result has been generalized by various authors to twisted Alexander polynomials and…

We study a twisted Alexander polynomial naturally associated to a hyperbolic knot in an integer homology 3-sphere via a lift of the holonomy representation to SL(2, C). It is an unambiguous symmetric Laurent polynomial whose coefficients…

This article presents an alternate way to prove a result originally proven by Harvey, Kawamuro, and Plamenvskaya in \cite{HaKaPl}. We accomplish this by explicitly constructing an overtwisted disk in the $p$-fold cyclic branched cover of…

We show that the difference between the topological 4-genus of a knot and the minimal genus of a surface bounded by that knot that can be decomposed into a smooth concordance followed by an algebraically simple locally flat surface can be…

We extend knot contact homology to a theory over the ring $\mathbb{Z}[\lambda^{\pm 1},\mu^{\pm 1}]$, with the invariant given topologically and combinatorially. The improved invariant, which is defined for framed knots in $S^3$ and can be…

We show that if a co-dimension two knot is deform-spun from a lower-dimensional co-dimension 2 knot, there are constraints on the Alexander polynomials. In particular this shows, for all n, that not all co-dimension 2 knots in S^n are…

We consider the subspace of the homology of a covering space spanned by lifts of simple closed curves. Our main result is the existence of unbranched covers of surfaces where this is a proper subspace. More generally, for a fixed finite…

We define the Witt coindex of a link with non-trivial Alexander polynomial, as a concordance invariant from the Seifert form. We show that it provides an upper bound for the (locally flat) slice Euler characteristic of the link, extending…

By studying the Heegaard Floer homology of the preimage of a knot K in S^3 inside its double branched cover, we develop simple obstructions to K having finite order in the classical smooth concordance group. As an application, we prove that…

A canonical branched covering over each sufficiently good simplicial complex is constructed. Its structure depends on the combinatorial type of the complex. In this way, each closed orientable 3-manifold arises as a branched covering over…

We show that all large enough positive integral surgeries on algebraic knots bound a 4-manifold with a negative definite plumbing tree, which we describe explicitly. Then we apply the lattice embedding obstruction coming from Donaldson's…

We study the connections among the mapping class group of the twice punctured torus, the cyclic branched coverings of (1,1)-knots and the cyclic presentations of groups. We give the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and…

This paper gives new and elementary combinatorial topological proofs of the classification of unoriented and oriented rational knots and links. These proofs are based on the known classification of alternating knots through flyping, and the…

Splints of root system of simple lie algebras appears naturally on studies of embedding of reductive subalgebras. A splint can be used to construct a branching rules as implementation of this idea simplifies calculation of branching…